The Political Parties
WE were not sorry at the end of last week to learn that the House of Commons rejected the Vote of Censure moved by the Opposition. We do not deny that the motion was reasonable, or that the Government should not feel chastened by the words of Mr. Baldwin and others ; and the substantial majority for the Govern- ment was not attained by methods that we like. But defeat would almost certainly have entailed resignation, and this is not the moment for a change of Government. Thus we may seem to approve of Mr. Lloyd George's " tactics." We do not, though they may have served a useful purpose. The mistake in our view lay with the Opposition in issuing such a direct challenge at this moment. However, the Government is so perilously exposed to dangers on other quarters than the front, that it has not felt much strength or reinvigoration from last week's success.
The Budget is nearly due, and bristles with difficulties which must make for the unpopularity of those in power. The Government that is responsible for over-spending our income must bear the odium of the consequences. We grant that the conditions of the world have been against them, they have " had no luck," but they have only met ill fortune with whines or grasped it as an excuse when criticized. So far from decreasing ex- penditure when they saw revenue likely to fall below their estimates, they have deliberately increased it. We hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will very quickly be a fit man, but we are doubly sorry for him because we hold him to be the soundest financier among them, as he should be, and that many of the troubles before him are not of his making.
Secondly, Indian affairs bid us not change horses until we are at any rate nearer the further bank. This is chiefly lest India should misinterpret a change. The whole difficult business has been a very fine example of the unity of Parties ever since Sir John Simon produced his unanimous Report, and it is realized that loyalty to the Government could be relied upon less surely from the Labour Party if it were in opposition. The Govern- ment seemed to us to go into the Round Table Conference with too little preparation, but the result, we must admit, was good. The Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor did well. Lord Reading, Lord Peel and Sir Samuel Hoare gave invaluable help and influenced the whole Conference enormously. But when the Conference is resumed, and, as we hope from our experience, there is as little restriction as possible put upon the fields of discussion, we believe it will be well that the Indians should find the same Government in power, a. Government, too, which has collaborated so successfully with Lord Irwin, who will be at home. In Foreign Affairs, again, we are very willing that Mr. Henderson should remain in charge. He and the Foreign Office have worked together along lines that have won approval at home and abroad, and the methods employed have shown no truckling to ignorant sentimentalism such as was feared when the Labour Party used to talk of " Open Dip- lomacy."
The majority in the House last week was due to Liberal support of the Government. It is the Liberal Party alone which suffers from the exciting doubts that precede its voting. When we find fault with Mr. Lloyd George, we always feel it a duty to remind ourselves of his magnificent services to his country during the War, lest we should seem ungrateful. But his disservice to .a historic party has been lamentable. The Liberal Party does not stand so low as it does in public opinion on account of its meagre numbers. It is recognized that in many respects its quality is high, and that the rise of the Labour Party has inevitably been mainly at the expense of the Liberals. But the bargaining, spoken or understood, the balancing of what is expedient at the moment, have shocked us. Most of the " public " may not understand the reasons that might be urged in excuse, but they see in Mr. Lloyd George a cynically unprincipled leader of a small body, conscious of power in a critical vote, but choosing their Lobby not by conviction, but by expediency. Englishmen are repelled by what seems to be patent opportunism. They have far more sympathy with that lonely body, the Liberal Council, over which Lord Grey presides. There, again, is a small body of high quality. They are good Liberals, unable to follow Mr. Lloyd George for two reasons ; they disagree with him on the political question of retrenchment and they cannot away with the " tactics " which he bids his party follow. Lord Grey has said that he does not want a change of Government just now, though he would advocate economy as the first political need of the country. There we are with him, and, indeed, we are in sympathy with him on most points, and are the more conscious of sympathy when we think of the Protectionist doctrines that pervade so many of the Unionist Members of Parliament. We foresee ourselves driven to acquiesce in some kind of tariff because we can see no other sources of the revenue that is needed to meet increased expenditure: The country has been driven to the edge of the Fiscal preci- pice by the Labour Government. Free Traders have always hoped that there would be no hampering of foreign trade here by avoidable tariffs, but a tariff for revenue with countervailing excise taxes where possible (obviously not universally possible against a general tariff), has never been against their doctrines. And their theories may have to bend before what is now called " the psychological , factor." It is said that the first need is to restore confi- dence to manufacturers and traders ; with such confidence they could even face boldly the present taxation. To guarantee them against State interference would give them the greatest and surest confidence, but if a general tariff gave them even a fictitious or fleeting confidence, it might do good.
While therefore the Unionist Party and the Liberal Council both put public economy first as our most urgent political need, there seems to be nothing except Protection to divide them. If the Council could leave its lonely furrow where, though it preserves its honourable traditions, it can raise no fruits for the nation, and could prepare to co-operate with the Unionist Party .before the next Election, both would gain. The Liberals would regain an influence in affairs which they deserve to exercise. The Unionists would gain by the accession of a small body, whose weight would be far greater than its numbers alone would indicate. We shall rejoice to see the Unionist Party, if it is soon to return to power, invigorated by the new blood, strengthened by the brains and experience of these Liberals, and, not least, influenced by them to keep the inevitable tariff from doing wanton damage to our unhappy foreign trade: We looked to that formerly brilliant advocate of Free Trade, Mr. Churchill, to keep his party from Protection while he was at the Treasury. We can put less -reliance in him now for that purpose, but we should have faith in some new. Liberal-Unionists from the Liberal Council to exercise the very influence that the Unionist Party most needs,
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